A RURAL vet repeatedly destroyed a swans' nest at a Cheshire beauty spot because it was interfering with his fishing, a court heard yesterday.

Vet Timothy Briggs, who practises with Nantwich Veterinary Group, is charged with sabotaging the nest of the protected species on two occasions in March last year.

The swans had been nesting near pools at Tilston Bank trout farm, near Beeston, for the past three years, Chester Magistrates' Court was told.

Mr Rhys Rowlands, prosecuting, said Briggs had attacked the nest in the twilight hours by kicking it into the water while the swans were in the pools.

Briggs, 49, of Bunbury Lane, Tarporley, ran a fishing syndicate at the trout farm and the nest had become a nuisance to the anglers, Mr Rowlands told the court.

He said: "The pools were visited by swans who would spend winter on the canal and move to nest in pools divided by a causeway.

"The swans built a nest in the middle of that causeway and in doing so created an obstacle for those seeking to fish on it."

In a letter to the police, Briggs, who denies the charges, had admitted cordoning off the spot with fencing tape in what he described as a "wholly passive" attempt to discourage them from nest-building.

Mr Rowlands said: "Having failed with the fencing tape, he resorted to kicking the nest and damaging it in the hope that it would succeed where the fencing tape had failed."

Briggs' actions had been witnessed by two local residents, Brian Mulloch and Sheila Pugh, who regularly walked the stretch of water between the Chester-Crewe railway line and the Shropshire Union Canal, Mr Rowlands said.

Mr Mulloch told the court that he had seen a man he now knew to be Briggs alone on the causeway on four occasions.

The man drove a blue four-wheel drive with white letters on the door.

At the beginning of March, he had seen Briggs arrive in the early evening as it was going dark and swipe the partially-built nest into the water with his foot before driving off, he told the court.

He saw the man again on March 15, by which time the swans had rebuilt their nest.

He said: "There was a complete nest this time and he destroyed it."

Mr Mulloch said he then saw Briggs again on April 12, standing fishing where the nest was.

He said the eggs later disappeared and he believed that Briggs had shooed away the swans and removed the eggs. Sheila Pugh, who has known Briggs for about 15 years, told the court she was walking her dog near the pools on March 15 when she saw Briggs destroy the swans' nest.

She said she had also seen Mr Mulloch hiding behind a tree, watching Briggs.

Mr Rowlands said Mrs Pugh had called in the police and the RSPB. The nest was later found inexplicably abandoned.

Briggs was cautioned by police on May 16. He refused to be interviewed, but issued a statement claiming that Mrs Pugh was pursuing a vendetta against him.

Describing Mrs Pugh and other locals who had formed a "swan watch" as a group of "zealots", Briggs claimed he hadn't gone anywhere near the nest when it was in use and suggested it had been destroyed by mink.

Insisting that Mrs Pugh had made a false complaint against him, he said: "As a veterinary surgeon in this area for 25 years who is highly involved in countryside matters, I would have no motivation to disturb a swans' nest."

Besides possible disciplinary proceedings, such an act would be "injurious" to his social standing, he said.

John Gallagher, defending, questioned Mr Mulloch's account, suggesting that he had discussed his story with Mrs Pugh.

He said: "I am suggesting that the person that you saw was not a vet from Bunbury called Timothy Briggs."

Mr Gallagher also questioned Mr Mulloch about what had happened to the paper on which he claimed to have noted down a description of Briggs and the registration of his car.

Mr Mulloch replied that he had left the note in his coal shed and that his cat had been sick on it.

He also questioned Mrs Pugh's assertion that she had recognised Briggs' four-wheel drive from several previous occasions, insisting that Briggs had only begun driving the car on March 14.

Mr Gallagher suggested that there had been ill feeling between Briggs and Mrs Pugh, but she denied this.